As someone who refuses to vote for Trump and is legitimately interested in potentially voting for a Democratic president for the first time and who also kind of likes Pete, the hyper liberal hatred and distortions against him are fairly off putting for any Democrat at all. Criticize his lack of political experience, the fact that he's not polling well for anyone but white voters, etc - that's all legit. The hatred and distortions make it seem the Democrats are kind of ridiculous tbh.
Perhaps as a NeverTrumper GOP voter, you can appreciate that a handful of people nor even elected representatives speak for the party and generalizing particular sentiments to the entire party is both insulting and incorrect to the majority of members.
Fair enough. So I'd put it back to you, would you say that what I'm hearing super negative about Pete is a small minority of the Democratic party that's just very loud rather than an ill conceived purity test within the Democratic party? I'm inclined to believe the second one because of how in recent years it seems there is less dissent allowed in the party platform, people fawning all over themselves to agree on the same talking points in a large portion of the debates I've watched, etc. However, I'm not nearly as in touch with the Democratic party as you guys are, of course, so I'd be glad to have that rebutted.
I am not a fan of Pete personally to make my bias known. But as far as purity tests go, are they any better or worse than the GOP? I don't mean to make this into a 'whataboutism' contest, but I think your question implies a certain "Democrats have a purity test that doesn't exist in the GOP or at the very least is much worse." Polarization is happening in both parties.
However, I would submit that the fact that the Democrats can debate certain topics while still remaining a single party shows that Democrats are the coalition party. Add to that that the Democrats are a relatively diverse group of representatives showing that they can appeal to a broad base of multiple groups ranging from very liberal to pretty conservative. The GOP on the other hand is more or less a monolith of WASPs. Can you think of a 5 currently serving "moderate" republican senators? Maybe Collins and Murkowski? Whereas on the Dem side you have Chuck Schumer, Chris Coons, Joe Manchin, Doug Jones, etc.
With the 2018 election which senators did we see lose? Nelson (D, FL), Donnelly (D, IN), McCaskill (D, MO), Heller (R, NV), and Heitkamp (D, ND). Mostly conservative-center democrats that were rejected for not being aligned enough with Trump.
When talking about Pete specifically, there are a couple of problems. 1. His main appeal is that he "understands" conservative voters despite never winning any conservative leaning election ever. (Klobuchar is the only close enough to fit this criteria, but even MN is a lean Dem state.) 2. He doesn't actually have any appeal to a large faction of the democratic party. In the democratic party, you have to be at least palatable to every major faction in order to win. Any "purity test" I would think are people trying to push Pete more towards greater coalition. It's honestly a similar problem with Biden, the political center is no longer large enough to win national elections. And pretending that we're still working with early 90's politics is a strategic mistake.
For the GOP you'll notice that their ads and main tactics all revolve around their solidarity with Trump. Whereas several of the Dem party candidates have absolutely no fear and little repercussions from dissenting from Obama's positions and legacy. The fact that there is argument and debate isn't proof of a 'purity test'. Quite the opposite, it's proof of diversity of opinion among the party.